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[0:00] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Hello and welcome to the Drama Book Show. My name is Mark-Eugene Garcia.

[0:23] David Rigano: And the Drama Book Show is where we bring you conversations with writers, artists, and theater professionals whose work helps shape the world of live performance. In this episode, we take a behind-the-scenes look at the world of Hollywood casting with one of the industry's most accomplished and influential figures, Joel Thurm.

[0:58] Mark-Eugene Garcia: In this episode, we take a behind-the-scenes look at the world of Hollywood casting with one of the industry's most acclaimed and influential figures, Joel Thurm. In this episode, we take a behind-the-scenes look at the world of Hollywood casting with one of the industry's most accomplished and influential figures, Joel Thurm. In this episode, we take a behind-the-scenes look at the world of Hollywood that's true that's true me and Tim Curry but no that was it was always just he was the cute character that yeah that Michael Tolliver went for and this whole scene about dressing like the person you want to pick up and he came in dressed all preppy and found a preppy guy that was him and then to go back and be like oh that's you it's you and here you are and here you are and here I am in my 30s oh that's what 40 year old laughter sounds like that's true true.

[2:17] David Rigano: The two of them had a great conversation about just being a casting director in Hollywood and in theater and what it takes to do that so without any further ado let's jump in let's hear Joel Thurm and Lou Liberatore talking live at the Drama Bookshop.

[2:37] Lou Liberatore: And I just want to check a couple of things first. I just want to all right it's strong enough because names will be dropped.

[2:48] Joel Thurm: Very good very good so anyway full disclosure Joel Thurm was my first partner and he will say the best one but our lawyers and my present partners will have something to say about that notice he said partners but that's another story a whole other story so yes so I've known Mr. Thurm for quite some time and also as the leading casting director of renown for many years he never cast me in anything so the casting couch did not exist not true though we'll talk about that later it happened once and then he said he married her so there you go so anyway welcome thanks so much for coming which it's great to see familiar faces and all over thank you yeah I'm just gonna dive right in oh yeah a couple of things my name is Nacelle a couple of times in the book his birthday is wrong there were 310 typos in the book my sister the accountant found them self-publishing at its best no I didn't self-publish didn't no it's a fun no I have a big ego but not big enough to self-publish no it's and Bear Manor Media wanted to do it and they was the only ones who wanted to do it so it was easy to make that choice.

[4:07] Lou Liberatore: Human we're in New York we're in the Broadway area so I'm gonna I'm gonna start with Joel New York Broadway off-Broadway so tell us really what was your very first job in the theater.

[4:21] Joel Thurm: My very first job in the theater was at the box as the box office treasurer for the Tappan Zee Playhouse in Nyack, New York. You're familiar with that right and it was this was in my senior year of college and everybody that was wanted to do somersault as actors and all then I did too I thought I was going to be wanted to be an actor at that time until I actually realized I was terrible but I think this is ridiculous I'm never gonna get an acting job let me see what backstage jobs are there were front of house jobs and that's how it happened and I got paid the actors didn't get paid I got paid I said oh this is the way to go wonderful and also you also were one of the places in the Westbury Music Fair what's for you but that was I was like assistant manager of the place and I lived in a trailer right behind the theater a wonderful Airstream trailer and I would wander through the dressing rooms at night and I still have a tie that belonged to what's his name the suntan actor George Hamilton who was doing who was playing Nicky Arnstein at that point so I got I sold one of his really really good ties.

[5:27] Lou Liberatore: So I want to want I I know a lot of these stories obviously we've known each other for 40 plus years but tell us a little about like Cafe Chino look a lot of people are not familiar with Cafe Chino was really where off-Broadway started I started the Circle Repertory Company but before that Joe Chino had the Cafe Chino and it really was the start of what we know is off-Broadway off-off-Broadway places really there were more than that but there were two prominent ones the Cafe Chino and I don't remember this cafe was added to it no La Mama Theater Company etc and it was over a dry cleaners on Second Avenue for La Mama and Chino of course was at the Chino coffee shop and at that time oh it gets so I was introduced to the Cafe Chino through Lance Wilson Lanford Wilson and Michael Warren Powell Michael Warren Powell was I guess a producing partner of Lance's and also his roommate and Michael Powell and I began a relationship and he introduced me to the Cafe Chino and I loved it it was like wow this place is incredible and Joe Chino who ran the place I don't have enough time to explain all of this how wonderful he was and how he his place was available to anybody who wanted to do something he didn't judge the quality or lack thereof so it was hit and miss in terms of the product but he greatly encouraged people to come in and do their and have their place done great and I know Joe he was always something about hey Joe I got I got something to do he's like great put it on you self-produced it you put it together you built the sets you did it all that and everything but I think it was a real proving ground for Lanford and and Leonard Melphy and Victor Bumbalo and Sam Shepard his name I forgot because by the way I have the memory of goldfish so there was a lot and also the Bowery Lane Theater the Bowery Lane Theater it's all interconnected so it's amazing the house of cards that we build for ourselves in a good sense I had I loved being up at Tappan Zee and the woman who owned the Tappan Zee Playhouse had bought this cast iron building on Bowery and Bond Street that she and there was nothing on the Bowery that except bums so it was not the Bowery that you have today but this building was extraordinary and she had the vision and the money to put in a 199 seat theater and I helped build that theater and then after the theater was built I was a house manager I was a box office treasurer I was whatever needed doing and this is the kind of training that you don't realize it's training for things later on but this is what I did and I loved it I just want to lay groundwork that he's got some street cred in the theater before he sold out and moved to Los Angeles so I want you to see him and respect him in a certain way that's why I'm here to be outside of it so yes you know Bowery Lane some of these theaters again prepared him for certainly what was to come and one big thing to come was David Merrick so how did that happen.

[8:38] Joel Thurm: I had made a friend at the Cafe through the Cafe Chino I had met a guy who was no longer with us who was Richard Bar's general Richard Bar produced all of Edward Albee's all early plays and this guy was the general manager and so we became friends and he would say and he said to me he said look I hear they're looking for someone at Westbury Music Fair to do to be water and I said oh do you want to interview said sure and I went and I got the job and a couple years later I got a call that there's an opening at the Merrick office not a creative opening but get another business opening and they said do you want I said absolutely and at the meet in the meantime I was managing a summer theater in Absecon, New Jersey which is outside of Atlantic City and is in the middle of a mosquito infested swamp as there's a lot of teachers so seriously what we would have to do it was this was a tent and out there which was called the Smithville Music Fair and every night at around I don't know six seven o'clock the flaps of the tent would go down and these giant giant canisters of rage would flood the tent and all the insects would die and then of course the minute that the flaps were opened again their brethren came in to replace them so people were always going like this throughout the entire performances it did not go to a second season and I was lucky enough to get the offer from Merrick in August I said bye and I'm going to mention a few things a few plays and you can spout off what you need a few things under Merrick a child's play child's play I must say was that was Merrick that was a David Merrick that nobody thinks of there was a play a play script a simple script a play script and I read it and my boss at Merrick how do I okay I was working in the business area at David Merrick I was assistant to Jack Schlissel who was Merrick's general manager who was who carried he was the hatchet man he did they said they the one reinforced each other to be nefarious deeds mainly related to money anyway I was Jack's assistant but he knew I wanted to not be in the business area be in the creative area so one day he my phone buzzes get in here and I get in this was our normal thing and he said look he said I can't stand working with you anymore that was the opening line and he said but I if you want to I can't stand working so look you got a choice you can either work with Biff Liff who later went on to become a very famous agent at William Morris Theater agent work with reopen our casting department become our casting director and you'll get a fifty dollar a week raise and I said I don't know anything about casting and Jack said yes you do you just don't know you do which is very interesting and that was telling and that's how it became a casting director you're a casting director that was that was it and but that this particular play Merrick was mostly in California trying to become a movie producer when this play was being done and I read the script and I threw out three names to Bear Pritchfield would be good for this and this would be good for this and the third one I can't remember who it was but those people got no auditions no nothing I suggested them they got hired also Ken Howard was in that if you know who Ken Howard is and so he wound up winning a Ken won a Tony Fritz Weaver I think won a Tony and the play won a Tony and it was after all of it Merrick gave me my gave me a raise and two weeks later I got an offer to go to California so it didn't do me any good and I often wonder what would have happened if I didn't go to California we'll never know wouldn't have met me.

[12:27] Lou Liberatore: 40 carats oh 40 carats I'm just going to throw out some names if you need a story let's put it this way it started with Julie Harris who did it for a year and we ended with Jugger Bore need I say anything else played against Sam played against Sam Woody Allen's less than 90 minute play and just there was people did remember a letter that came into the barricades complaining about the length of the play and Merrick wrote a letter back saying from now on he won't read scripts he'll just weigh them promises promises I did not cast the original but I did all the replacement casting and all the road companies but again I'm this kid working with Burke and Hal David and Neil Simon what am I doing there what about the major replacement oh the major thank you so in the original show the original production the stars were Jerry Orbach and and Jill and Jill O'Hara Neil then Jill O'Hara everybody wanted to fire Jill except Neil Simon and there are many reasons why he didn't want to fire her which we won't go into because I can't corroborate any of them but the but the point is Jill stayed and she had an I think an 18 month contract or whatever it was but the minute she left we replaced her with her sister Jenny O'Hara Jenny O'Hara by the way is still working in LA she's a wonderful actress but I really created a rift in that family and the only thing we did is we saved money on the marquee we didn't have to place all the letters a major selling point wonderful good superstar Jesus Christ Superstar Jesus Christ Superstar oh god really tell that.

[14:13] Lou Liberatore: Welcome back to The Drama Book Show! Today, we have a very special guest, casting director Joel Thurm, who has an incredible career in Hollywood. Joel, thank you for being here.

[14:30] Joel Thurm: Thank you for having me, Lou. It's great to be here.

[14:35] Lou Liberatore: So, your book, "Sex, Drugs, and Pilot Season," is a fascinating read. You share so many stories from your time in the industry. Can you tell us a bit about how you got started in casting?

[14:50] Joel Thurm: Absolutely. I started in the business in the late '60s. I was working as a production assistant and quickly realized that casting was where I wanted to be. I loved the process of finding the right actors for the roles and helping to shape the stories that would be told.

[15:10] Lou Liberatore: You mention discovering some iconic talents in your book. Can you share a memorable story about one of those discoveries?

[15:20] Joel Thurm: One of my favorite stories is about John Travolta. I was casting for a show called "The Rookies," and I saw him audition. He was so talented and had this incredible charisma. I knew right away he was going to be a star.

[15:40] Lou Liberatore: That's amazing! And you also worked on some legendary shows like "Cheers" and "The Golden Girls." What was it like to be part of those productions?

[15:55] Joel Thurm: It was a dream come true. Each show had its own unique vibe, and the talent we brought in was just phenomenal. Working with people like Bea Arthur and Ted Danson was an experience I'll never forget.

[16:15] Lou Liberatore: You also touched on the challenges of pilot season in your book. Can you explain what that process is like for casting directors?

[16:30] Joel Thurm: Pilot season is intense. It's a time when networks are looking to fill their new shows, and casting directors are inundated with auditions. You have to be quick, decisive, and have a good eye for talent because the competition is fierce.

[16:50] Lou Liberatore: It sounds like a high-pressure situation. How do you manage that stress?

[17:00] Joel Thurm: You have to love what you do. Passion for the craft helps you push through the stress. Plus, having a great team makes all the difference. We support each other and keep the atmosphere positive.

[17:20] Lou Liberatore: Speaking of teams, you’ve worked with some incredible collaborators throughout your career. Can you share a bit about those relationships?

[17:35] Joel Thurm: Absolutely. Collaboration is key in this industry. I've been fortunate to work with directors and producers who value the casting process. Building those relationships has been essential to my success.

[17:55] Lou Liberatore: And your book is filled with anecdotes that highlight those relationships. What inspired you to write "Sex, Drugs, and Pilot Season"?

[18:10] Joel Thurm: I wanted to share my experiences and give readers an insider's look at the casting process. There are so many fascinating stories that often go untold, and I felt it was important to document them.

[18:30] Lou Liberatore: It’s definitely a compelling read. What do you hope readers take away from your book?

[18:45] Joel Thurm: I hope they gain a deeper understanding of the casting process and the people behind the scenes. It's a challenging but rewarding job, and I want to inspire the next generation of casting directors.

[19:05] Lou Liberatore: That’s a great message. Thank you for sharing your insights, Joel.

[19:15] Joel Thurm: Thank you, Lou. It's been a pleasure.

[28:28] Joel Thurm: Bob and I had very little interaction. Bob wasn't the kind of star who would say, "I want this and I want that." And there were very good people, Jim Brooks, Ed Weinberger, Jay Tarsis, Tom Patchett. These are all writers, and they all worked there. At that time, also, there was a huge divide between television and film. If you started out in television, you graduated to movies. Now, of course, it's the opposite. They start out in movies, then you go to television. But then it was considered a step down. So it was a little difficult to cast certain things. And so casting the Bob Newhart show, were there some New York actors you flew out? All the time. I can't remember flying out Raul Julia. I'm trying to think.

I wish I could remember all of these. But I was able to just say fly him out. Luckily, they knew a lot of these New York actors. And were you starting to feel more comfortable in the job? Oh, I felt very comfortable in that. I felt very comfortable because I don't know why it is, but it's always easier to cast things that are well written, that people actually want to do. The hardest job in the world to do is to cast a television pilot, a half hour comedy television pilot that's not funny. And the writers don't know that it's not funny. Ed Weinberger, Jim Brooks, these are people you have been also further relationships with later on. Yes, later on. But also I've been in a situation with you, so we'd give an actor a note.

Can you do it again, but make it a little funnier? And I was waiting for an actor to say, can you write it again and make it a little funnier? Those are the notes I received lots of times at home. We won't talk about that, will we? So yeah, so working with Ethel Winant, CBS Paramount, MTM, what then? I was asked to leave CBS. I was a disruptor, surprise. But Ethel gave me great latitude. Do anybody remember or know of something called the Bicentennial Minutes in 1976? And I won't go into it because nobody knows it, but I was given side projects that were at CBS that weren't direct casting and I loved them. There's one quick story, Charlton Heston. The Bicentennial Minutes were at CBS at eight o'clock starting in 1974, backing up two years before the Bicentennial.

And there would be dialogue like on November 4th, 1974, Benjamin Franklin went to the woodshed and took a dump. And then I would have to relate that to something in present day. Benjamin Franklin ran a newspaper, so I got Catherine Graham from the Washington Post to do a minute to newspaper editors. I was given that and the scripts were written. I didn't write them, but as the actors were doing them, I had to be very careful on time. The time was very important. It was only a minute, so I would cut. But if the actor was too long, I would say, well, you can cut this line, we can cut that line. I had free range to do this stuff and I didn't know what I was doing, but I was doing it right. But Charlton Heston was my favorite one because of who he is.

And he was also around in 1776. Good for you. But I was waiting for him at the artist's entrance at CBS and he had driven in and when he was driving in, I was there greeting him, hello, hello. And I said, I'm Joel Thurm, blah, blah, blah. And he said, look, here's my car, but it needs gas. Can you go get me gas? He didn't know I was the one who was doing it. So I took his very, very dirty Corvette. And this is during when there were lines at gas stations, which of course, in New York, you never have to worry about because you don't have cars. Anyway, so I think I ruined his gears, took it because it was a shift car and I wasn't that good at it. Anyway, so I went and got him gas and came back and he was really surprised and he apologized for, I didn't know you were the one, but he, I feel, anyway, it was all fine by the time he did a very good minute and it was good.

And I will not tell you my story about Jordan Heston in the movie the week that I did it. Okay, for another time. So you, so from there, from, oh, so when I was forced to leave Spelling Goldberg, excuse me, CBS, I had a very good friend, a wonderful casting director who ironically I had replaced at Merrick. Her name was Linda Otto. And so she was working for casting, Spelling Goldberg was a production company. I had gone from the Tiffany to the Kay Jewelers. Let's put it that way in terms of quality. And Spelling Goldberg. Spelling Goldberg, Aaron was Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg. And they produced meat and potatoes commercial television. CBS was called the Tiffany network that they had sophisticated and whatever.

Spelling Goldberg was whatever we could sell, we'll do. Movies like Satan's school for girls. There was a whole flu of them, the bomb on flight, the vital voyage of flight 102, all of these things. Did they do Mafia Daughter? No, Mafia Princess. Princess, that's later. No, that happened when I was at CBS. Oh, okay. But we'll get back to that. Excuse me, not CBS, it had NBC. We'll get back to that. But I love, and I just love the fact that I drove into a movie studio where the offices were. It was 20th Century Fox. And this was the, the Barbra Streisand Hello Dolly Railroad was still up at that point. It was a movie studio a lot. And I was just thought this is just wonderful. And, but the thing that was great was being able to end of CBS, go to Spelling Goldberg two weeks later.

And do you remember what some of the things you cast from there? I cast, I was casting Starsky and Hutch every week. And, and they, what I would do is I would bring out New York talent to put on these shows. I was very adamant about not using the same actors in Hollywood that people had seen over and over again on all shows. At that time, there was Universal did a series stuff. You couldn't tell the shows one show from another because all the actors were the same. There wasn't a diversity that I brought to Starsky and Hutch. And Paul and David were terrific. They loved the fact that they could work with New York actors. And it was a wonderful thing. And also Spelling Goldberg led to the next thing that I did, which completely changed things for me.

I had, I'm sitting in my office one night, or it was Friday and this woman called her name was Cindy Dunn. And Cindy Dunn's job was to develop scripts for Spelling Goldberg, all scripts. And she came in and she said, look, she said, I'm really sad. And she said, ABC just passed on my favorite script. She said, the only way they will do it is if we can get a star. She said, can you do me a favor and read the script over the weekend? And I said, that's not a favor. That's my job here. And so I, I read the script. So this is, I get the script on a Friday night. I, and I read it Saturday morning. I had a ritual with my best friend at that time. His name was Bob Lamond, his personal manager, no longer with us, but among his clients were God, John Travolta, Jeff Conaway, Patrick Swayze, Catherine Hellman, Holland Taylor.

All of these were wonderful actors. And what happened is prior to the, so Bob would come over every Saturday. We would lie on my deck, reading scripts, getting melanoma and reading in the sun before we knew it was dangerous. And well, Bob had a client named John Travolta who had gone on Welcome Back, Cotter that year, and it was getting to be the end of Cotter. And John basically wanted to do something to change his image because he wasn't Vinnie Barbarino in real life. Although he was from Jersey and had a vowel at the end of his name, he was not a gavotte. What I read the script, read the script. And so Bob, Bob was complaining. He had to find something for John to do in a month. And I said, here, here's the rabbit that you need to pull out of the hat.

And he read it. It was a Saturday night. He said, I love the script. I'm sending it to John. John read it the next day. By Sunday night, he was in. And that was called? Oh, the book's called The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. There you go. With that script. And what happened was I go in on Monday, the next day, and I go and call in Leonard Goldberg. So whoever it was, I said, okay, John Travolta wants to do it. So Cindy first. I said, Cindy, John Travolta will do this. He said, you're kidding. I said, no, he wants to do it. And we went to, as it went up the ladder from the, from Spelling and Goldberg and then to the network, everyone said, why is he doing this? Because he was smart. That's why he was doing it.

And, and The Boy in the Plastic Bubble became a cult movie. It's a wonderful movie. Who directed it? It was directed by, thank you. I was directed by a man named Randall Kleiser. Who was a, who came from, he was a USC. He was, I met him when he was a grad student at USC and he, a few other friends, he asked me if I could cast his master's thesis for USC. And I read the piece and I said, let me read it. And it was, I wasn't, and I read it and I thought the half hour piece was brilliant. It was a story about someone who, a college age kid who goes back to Grissom, his grandmother, who's in a nursing home with Alzheimer's. They didn't have that word then. And he remembers the good times they had together.

And it was a wonderful little piece. And in fact, NBC bought it for 10 years and aired it at Christmastime every year. But so I suggested Randall as a director for Spelling Goldberg shows and Starsky and Charlie's Angels. And the, and the feedback was wonderful. He came in on time and sometimes under budget and the cast liked him. All the cast liked him. The first time they worked together. That was, yeah, that was at the point. So I basically said, I, between, between coming in the office on Monday and Friday, I had assembled the package. Randall to direct, John to star, I don't know, whatever. And we had the script and the script was fine the way it was. And Randall had a nice career after.

Randall had a wonderful, he still is having one, by the way. But also it was like, this is why I really should have had Cliff notes with me. But there was a woman, I forgot who played, you would probably play John's... Diana. Diana Highland. And she and John started a, what do you call it? They had a wonderful affair until she died. I'm not telling a story very well. But Diana played John's mother in the movie, Boy in the Five Foot Bubble. And at the wrap party, at the night of the wrap party, I saw them literally nose to nose like this, talking very quietly and intently. And that was the night they began their whatever. And again, before I go into some of the more, the well, more, more well-known, the other well-known things that you've worked on, any questions at all from anyone?

You've been thinking now, this is a dying question I have to ask. Obviously not. Okay. Oh yeah, good. You first were told that, Merrick, hey, you could be a fireman, you could be a casting director, and you did a home run on that first thing. How did you even know how to cast? Or was it from people you'd seen at the theatres, those little theatres you worked at? What was your source of even knowing? The two leads, Ken Howard was the only really young person. I know two other young people in it too. But they're mostly older character actors that I knew. I didn't know them personally, but I knew their work, because I've been watching them for years. I was an unathletic kid. I was not a sissy, but I was an unathletic kid.

And so I spent hours in front of a television set, watching and going to movies. And my parents encouraged this. So I just knew who these people were. So I was able to realise at the top of my head, two character actors. And that's how it happened. Which brings up another subject, how do you become a casting director? I don't have a clue. I was suddenly, poof, you're a casting director. And it's something you really can't teach. You can observe and you learn the form, but unless you have a sense, and I don't know what that sense is. All that training you had, all that theatre training you had, I think just puts you in that right world of performance and production and what worked well, what didn't work.

You probably saw a lot of things that didn't work and said, oh, if he was a better actor, if she was a better actor. And sometimes, of course, sometimes you don't cast for the best actor, which is, you shouldn't say that in public. But one of the stories you always told me was that there was a couple of actresses who were up for a certain part, and it was the better actress, and it was the nicer actress. This is all in one together. This is doing Newhart, and one of the supporting characters was an airline pilot, and he was going to have a girlfriend. I had met this woman in my office. She had a really funny name, and she came from Texas. Her first name was Farrah. And so I'd met her before, and so I wanted Farrah for this, and when you meet Farrah Fawcett, it's one of those things, you just, you know something is there.

People say, how do you recognize a star, or how do you do that? I can't, something happens, and she had whatever it was, and this is before the poster, before all the beauty things. And so I brought her to read, I brought Farrah as part of seven women who came in to read for this role, and basically she gave a fair reading, but she was certainly the most gorgeous of all of them, but her reading was somewhere between fair and good, but there was another actress, a very good actress, who read very well, and the guys were going to, basically the producers, Patchett and Tarsus, wanted to go with this other woman who was the better actress, and I said, look, I'm the gay guy in the room, and I know what Farrah has. What am I missing here? You have this opportunity, and you're not taking it. And so that's my fat baby. Joel discovered Farrah. I did, but I'll never have to say so next.

[42:41] Lou Liberatore: Welcome back to The Drama Book Show! We’re here with the incredible Joel Thurm, who has shared so many amazing stories about his career in casting.

[43:11] Joel Thurm: Thank you, Lou. It’s great to be here.

[43:41] Lou Liberatore: You mentioned earlier about the unique challenges of casting for television versus film. Can you elaborate on that?

[44:01] Joel Thurm: Absolutely. In television, you have to think about the long-term potential of a character. You’re not just casting for one role; you’re casting for a series. The chemistry between actors is crucial because they need to work together over many episodes. In film, you often have a more finite timeline, and the focus can be more on the individual performance rather than the ensemble.

[44:21] Lou Liberatore: That makes a lot of sense. And you’ve worked on some iconic shows. What was it like casting for something like "Cheers"?

[44:41] Joel Thurm: Casting "Cheers" was a fascinating experience. We had a great team, and we were looking for actors who could bring both humor and depth to their roles. The chemistry between the cast was essential, and we had to ensure that each character could hold their own while also fitting into the ensemble.

[45:01] Lou Liberatore: You also mentioned the importance of timing in casting. Can you share an example of that?

[45:21] Joel Thurm: Timing is everything in casting. For instance, if you’re casting a show that’s set in a specific era, you need to find actors who not only fit the roles but also embody the spirit of that time. If you miss that window, it can change the entire dynamic of the show.

[45:41] Lou Liberatore: That’s fascinating. And what about the audition process? How do you keep it fresh for the actors?

[46:01] Joel Thurm: The audition process can be grueling for actors, so we try to make it as comfortable as possible. We often encourage them to bring their own interpretations to the material. It’s important for them to feel free to express themselves and not just deliver what they think we want to see.

[46:21] Lou Liberatore: That’s a great approach. It must lead to some memorable auditions.

[46:41] Joel Thurm: Definitely! Some of the best performances I’ve seen have come from actors who took risks and brought something unique to the table.

[46:51] Lou Liberatore: Speaking of unique, you’ve discovered some incredible talents over the years. Can you tell us about your experience with John Travolta?

[47:01] Joel Thurm: John was a remarkable find. He had this incredible energy and charisma that just lit up the room. When we were casting "Welcome Back, Kotter," he was a standout from the very beginning. It was clear he had something special.

[47:21] Lou Liberatore: And what about the Phoenix family?

[47:31] Joel Thurm: The Phoenix family was another unique experience. They were incredibly talented, and it was exciting to see how they evolved in their careers. It’s always rewarding to be part of someone’s journey in the industry.

[47:41] Lou Liberatore: You’ve had such a diverse career. What advice would you give to aspiring casting directors?

[47:51] Joel Thurm: My advice would be to always stay curious and open-minded. The industry is constantly changing, and you need to adapt. Also, build strong relationships with actors and agents; it’s all about collaboration.

[48:01] Lou Liberatore: Great advice! Thank you, Joel, for sharing your insights with us today.

[48:11] Joel Thurm: Thank you for having me, Lou. It’s been a pleasure.

[48:21] Lou Liberatore: And thank you to our audience for joining us on The Drama Book Show! We’ll see you next time.